Emma lay on a trolley in a small curtained bay, surrounded by the hellish bustle of the late-night ER. The ache in her leg had been dimmed by strong painkillers, which also turned her brain swampy and her saliva to chalk. It wasn’t clear what she was waiting for—an X-ray, a proper bed, a doctor?
One thing was clear, though, even through the fuzz. The memory of lying on a cold pavement, pain splintering up her side, finally seeing the face of the person she and Steph had been chasing. Emma had still been convinced it was Robin as they’d pursued him. He’d seemed the right height, right shape. She’d been about to scream his name when she’d tripped. For a split second things had ground into slow motion. The figure had twisted back toward them and a streetlamp had shown her, unmistakably, who he was. As time had boomeranged back to normal speed, she’d landed on the concrete with a painful smack. Then the figure was gone and she’d been left winded, unable to believe it.
She remembered, too, Steph kneeling beside her as the blue lights of an ambulance had loomed. Grabbing her hand, putting her mouth close to Emma’s ear. “I have to go. I’m sorry.”
Emma had been groggy. “What?”
“I can’t come with you to hospital.” Steph had spoken quickly and quietly, her breath hot on Emma’s skin.
“Where are you going?”
She recalled the whites of Steph’s eyes, incandescent in the dark. Strands of sweaty hair plastered to one of her cheeks from their chase, the smell of the wax jacket she’d been wearing.
Emma had wondered whether she’d recognized the person they’d been following too.
“Are you going to that place? The address you gave me?”
“Don’t tell anybody,” Steph had begged. “Please don’t tell the police. Tell them they have to look for Paul, though. I can’t lose either of them. This is all my fault.”
“Steph—”
But a paramedic had arrived and Steph had leaped to her feet. A support had been slipped around Emma’s neck: She couldn’t move, couldn’t lift her head even to watch Steph dash away. It seemed as though she’d just melted into the night.
Now the blue curtain swished and a nurse poked her head into Emma’s bay. “How are you doing?”
“I’m okay, but I really need to—”
“The police want to talk to you.”
“Oh?” Emma’s stomach fluttered.
“They’re at Reception. They’ll be here in a moment. Once they’re done, we’ll get you down to X-ray.”
Emma tried to sit up and compose herself as two uniformed figures approached. One of them was the man she’d started talking to about the hate mail and silent phone calls, before the sight of Zeb had cut the conversation short.
“Miss Brighton, the incident tonight—could you tell us what happened?”
“I . . . er . . .” She found herself acting more drugged than she really felt. Actually, her head was beginning to clear, and she realized she’d preferred the cushioning fog. “Steph and I heard noises. We found a note had been put through the door. Outside, we saw a person running away . . .”
One of the officers nodded. “We have the note.”
Emma nodded as well, glad of any information about how much they knew.
“So we chased him. Or tried to. I fell and I presume he got away.” She held her breath until the officers confirmed that they hadn’t caught him.
“Did you see the man?” they asked.
Emma winced as if she’d had a twinge in her hip, trying to distract their attention from her face. She’d never been a good liar. “It was too dark.” She mimed another pang of pain, hoping they’d take the hint and leave her to rest.
“Could you give any kind of description?”
“He was wearing a baseball cap.” She made her voice slow and dreamy. “Normal height. Sorry, I . . .”
They exchanged a glance. “No problem.” One of them laid a business card on her pillow. “Please call us if you remember anything else.”
Emma sank into the pillow, feeling it deflate around her head, the card sliding toward her ear.
Zeb’s words flashed back to her: Dad wouldn’t do that.
“Miss Brighton, do you wish to continue with the concerns you started registering yesterday?”
She stiffened again, staring up at the ceiling. “I . . . No. I got my wires crossed there.”
She heard them shuffle but didn’t dare look at them.
“You don’t think it’s connected to tonight’s events?”
“I don’t think so.” She spoke too sharply. Anxiety had slain any acting skills she’d had in the first place. She didn’t even want to think about the potential consequences of her lies. What choice did she have?
“Well, if you change your mind . . .” He nudged the business card closer, almost poking her jaw.
As they turned to go, Emma propped herself up. “One more thing.”
They paused. Another look flickered between them, perhaps questioning her now-lucid voice and surge of energy. She tried to slide back into her out-of-it act.
“Steph Harlow,” she slurred.
That seized their attention. But Emma’s words receded as quickly as they’d arrived. She recalled Steph’s urgent voice in the darkness, almost drowned by sirens: Please don’t tell the police.
“Is . . . she all right?” she substituted lamely.
“Actually, she disappeared from the scene shortly after you were taken to hospital. We’re still trying to ascertain her whereabouts. Do you have any ideas?”
Emma could remember the maisonette’s address exactly. Could picture it in Steph’s frantic scrawl. She didn’t know what was there . . . but Steph was Freya’s mother. Suddenly that seemed to dwarf everything else, seemed to give her, in Emma’s mind, the right to do whatever she felt she must.
“No,” Emma said. “Sorry, I don’t.”
The officers gazed at her for a few more seconds and then, when they realized she had nothing more to add, walked away.
As soon as they’d disappeared, Emma let herself cry. She kept replaying that moment, the figure turning back under the lamplight, the shock as she’d glimpsed his face.
Zeb.
She’d looked away and then back, as if it might have been a trick, and in that brief window he’d sprinted out of reach. But it had been him. The question was, had it all been him? Eggs and dog shit and parenting books and vicious notes?
Panic was stacking up in her chest. She needed to speak to Zeb. And what was she going to do about the Harlows? What if Steph was in danger and Emma was the only one who knew where she was?
The more she thought about it, the more contacting Paul Harlow seemed her only remaining option. I can’t lose either of them, Steph had said. This is all my fault. Was that true, Emma wondered. What about Paul’s shadow on the stairs that first night, Steph hunched on the bottom step with a bleeding ear? What about his raised voice the next evening, the smashing glass, the way he’d shaken off that woman on Kingston Bridge?
Were these images so vivid because Emma knew what it felt like to be threatened by a man? If she could just rinse Andy and Robin out of her system, would she be able to see clearly, know who to trust?
There had been plenty of strange behavior from Steph as well. But Emma had felt an inexplicable loyalty toward her. Perhaps she’d idolized her, in a way, because she’d seemed like one of the golden girls Emma had never been at school, with a golden daughter to match . . .
She felt a sudden wave of exhaustion, trying to understand her neighbors, to untangle her life from theirs. Maybe Steph and Paul were really just two parents in absolute crisis. Maybe the only thing left was to drop all judgments and allegiances, and give them the chance to make things right.
Then she had to figure out how to do the same with her own child. And hope that the two quests weren’t in conflict.